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Put the people of Rothwell, Woodlesford and Oulton first

Cllr Karen Bruce and Cllr David Nagle with signs at Rothwell Carnival asking local people how they think community money should be invested.

Open letter to Cllr Stewart Golton

Dear Stewart

I have just read your blog post entitled “Row erupts over school pitch funding”. It is disappointing that you have chosen once again to try and mislead people rather than working together for the good of the community. I’d have thought you’d have learnt your lesson in the local elections where local folk showed good Yorkshire sense and used the ballot box to soundly reject your smears and mischief making.

You’re right that me and Cllr David Nagle don’t support doing secret deals behind closed doors to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money that is meant to be for the community. Rather than your approach of stitching it up in secret we think it is better to ask people in Rothwell, Woodlesford and Oulton how the money should be spent.

It is wrong to suggest there has been any sort of secret “gentleman’s agreement” as that smacks of the tired, old politics that people are fed up with – much like your constant Punch and Judy attacks on me and David instead of getting on with the job you are elected to do.

Because we think local people are more important than secret deals we’ve asked them what they think the money should be invested in.

That’s why last week I blogged about the various options available, including the 3G pitch at Royds, to ask local people what they think. The blog post and Facebook status update on Rothwell News has reached nearly 2,000 local people and we’ve had lots of comments and feedback on what people think.

Rothwell’s Labour councillors also had a stall at Rothwell carnival where we set out all the options so people could learn about them and tells us what they thought. We spoke to more than 100 people and almost 20 took the time to write their ideas down on post-it notes.

That’s what we think local democracy should be about. Listening to local people and responding to their concerns. As part of listening and learning at Rothwell carnival we also spoke to other governors from Royds School. They understood the importance of benefiting as many people as possible.

They understand that there are many demands on public money and to ask for more than half of it for one project is unreasonable, which is why they’ve agreed to consider asking for considerably less.

You are factually wrong to say that pound for pound the 3G pitch will benefit more local people than the other ideas being put forward. The pitch will only be accessible to the school and a limited number of formal sports groups – as you say hundreds of people. In contrast investment in Springhead Park and Woodlesford Park will be accessible to everyone, many thousands of people.

Your blog post also fails to mention that the £180,000 is meant to be spent on environmental and greens space for the whole community and that Royds School is already getting £300,000 specifically earmarked for secondary education.

So Stewart if you want to have a row it’s with the people of Rothwell as me and David will be sticking up for what they want.

Yours sincerely

Cllr Karen Bruce

p.s. I’ll be publishing the results of our consultation later this week – including your post-it note contribution in favour of the 3G pitch as I think it’s important to be honest and transparent.